Egypt, it’s dangerous to rush into elections
Il Giornale, November 24 2011
The military have been ruling the Country for over five thousand years and they will not give up easily. And maybe for the better: the elections would only benefit Islamic fundamentalists.
The military have dominated Egypt for five thousand years and in no way will they relinquish their power today. There is no need to enter into the ethnic and historical fine speculations according to which today’s Egyptians are not really the Egyptians of the past. But the pharaohs - still visible through paintings and statues – were always accompanied by pompous generals whose names and feats passed on through history. In our time, Nasser was a military, like Sadat and Mubarak and behind them always appeared some sound army support officers. Tantawi, currently a 76-year old energetic general, was a close friend of Mubarak. And now that the crowd in Tahrir square is yelling his name with hatred, he is resisting floating on chaos. But if he yields to the pressure of the square, the future will be worse.
The Parliamentary elections of Monday were held under a long list of incomprehensible rules and will last until January more for poll-rigging rather than for democratic checks. In the meantime, the Constitution will have to be drafted and the Presidential election organized. But when? Under the first agreement, this will not take place before 2013, but there is already some opposition. And when the Constitution? Before, after the presidential election? The military say “before”, the crowd says the opposite, and it wants to advance the presidential election so as to oust the military. Tantawi made several moves to be thrown in the jaws of the angry population, staging today a very different revolution compared to the one in February: those days featured poor exploited subjects, lay people tired of dictatorship, professionals, students and bloggers.
By now the Islamist component looks overwhelming (in turn fighting among its ranks between the Muslim Brothers and the Salaphites). After Mubarak’s ban, they are the only ones getting really organized and fighting against a lay constitution. Friday’s protest – against which the army fired – took the lead from the text on the new Constitution prepared by the Prime Minister, Al Selmy, (who resigned): it doesn’t envisage any Parliamentary control over the army, thus giving it absolute power; it gives the army the power to define security threats, including the civilian ones, and this worries the Muslim Brothers; it establishes that two thirds of Parliament will approve the Commission designed to finally draft the Constitution, wich makes that move quite far away.
The crowd pushed three ministers to resign and in addition forced Tantawi to announce that the presidential elections will be held in advance, in June. But nobody knows whether this will alley the protesters: the lay people are interested in creating chaos because they are not ready to manage the political situation, the religious people want to topple the military regime that keeps them at bay, in particular their decision to introduce sharia in Egypt.
Therefore neither Monday election, nor the presidential vote are a solution. When in 2006, George Bush insisted that Hamas participate in the election, this set the stage for a small terrorist state, Gaza. And so the election is not a guarantee of democracy, given the chance for the Muslim Brothers to obtain 40% of the votes now, and even more at the presidential elections. So please, slow down, it is not possible to play enthusiast with Egypt elections when we all know that they will at the end help the Islamic power in the most important Arab country.